Baron Aviation launches air charter marketplace, BookMyCharters

The platform aggregates 40 aircraft in India and quotes rates in real time

The 'new economy' constantly throws up a multiplicity of entrepreneurial ventures trying to solve the problems of modern India. By telling their stories I try to catch a glimpse of the entrepreneurial evolution that India is going through. I have a weakness for the gloss of novelty and chase it in all experiences, from exploring new cities and restaurants, to changing what I read.

Baron Aviation, a Mumbai-based air charter service, on Monday announced the launch of BookMyCharters, an online platform for booking private jets. The platform has pooled 12 private jet operators with a combined fleet of 40 aircraft, which can be booked online at www.bookmycharters.com The service acts as an air charter marketplace, where the consumer can receive quotes in real time, much like Ola does with taxis.

“We are not just a lead generation platform but an end-to-end service fulfillment platform, which is backend integrated with charter operators,” said Rajeev Wadhwa, chairman and CEO, Baron Aviation. The platform’s launch comes over a year after JetSetGo a startup that aggregates jet flights, helicopters and air ambulances, launched operations in March 2014. The company was featured in Forbes India’s Luxury Special issue.

The air charter space is dominated by offline operators and agents and the move towards creating an online platform is aimed at countering the inefficiencies of an opaque system, Wadhwa said.

The fleet of aircraft that BookMyCharters offers ranges from the small Pilatus PC 1247, with a single turboprop engine to the Dassault Falcon 2000 twin-engine business jet. Concerns about the charter segment in India have persisted because of inadequate infrastructure and several regulatory hurdles that charter services face in order to function smoothly in the country.